The problem with VPNs is that when you use them, you are using someone else's IP address. Once major providers and services such as Cloudflare get wind of what IP addresses are associated with VPN services (NordVPN, etc.), they will block them. This is done for reasons such as preventing directed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and for content providers (i.e. Netflix, etc.), is to protect geoblocked content.
Over my years working for corporations, I had used company established VPNs in order to access our company's intranet from remote locations. With that, we had to use additional authentication methods such as SecureID tokens.
I really don't like the way that VPN services market themselves as a method of being "secure" on the internet. I don't find much security in having my traffic going through another server where who knows what they are picking up and saving.
These days, I rarely use VPNs and when I do, I use ones that are set up more in a hobby environment and I use them solely to listen to Japanese broadcast stations and used to use it to test my own geographic specific content (the J1 Radio website used to be set up where users coming in on Japan-based IP addresses would be redirected to Japanese language content first, I am not doing that anymore).
Last year, my VoIP provider was hit with a DDoS attack and took out phones out for nearly two weeks. They eventually went to cloudflare and other services to try to prevent it.
I don't get too many complaints about people not being able to access REC sites. Many times, the issue is related to expired security certificates that I have to manually update.
Keep in mind too that there are also "blacklists" that some websites use of what the lists feel are "troublesome" IP addresses. I experienced this when Comcast wanted me to change my modem for a newer one. The problem is that with Comcast cable modems, the public IP address is tied to MAC address of the modem. When I tried using the new modem, I was blocked from using many websites, including banks and airlines. When I did some checking, I found that the IP address was flagged on several blacklists. I switched back to the old modem and have been using it ever since without problems.
You also want to make sure that your anti-virus software is up to date and know what you are installing. That will keep your computer from running botnets and other things that will get your IP address blocked.
